firm: think! architecture and designsite: clinton hillSEPT

2015

In the film and video department at Pratt Institute, CNC-cut aluminum wraps a corner of the screening room.

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Clockwise from top left: A sound stage features chairs by Karim Rashid and a green-screen for video shoots. Maple, more commonly used for flooring, clads the underside of the screening room’s enclosure where it faces the lobby. Glass seperates the recording studio from its talent booth. Aluminum frames the front of spaces including the screenwriters’ classroom, set on top of the recording studio.

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”Animation and video have become

like the written word. Whatever field

you’re in, you’ll need them to commu-

nicate,“ Jorge Oliver says. With en-

rollment booming at Pratt Institute’s

film and video department, which

Oliver chairs, students and faculty

were getting cramped in their old

quarters in Clinton Hill, so Pratt freed

up space by taking the campus store

and relocating it—on the Internet.

That left a 15,000-square-foot

prefab metal building empty, waiting

to be transformed by Pratt alumnus

Jack Esterson, assisted by two

other alumni associates.

Despite Pratt’s myriad require-

ments for the facility—a recording

studio, a sound stage with an

“infinity” green screen for video

shoots, a screening room, and

more—Esterson was determined

to maintain the big-box feeling

of the 23-foot-tall column-free

interior. He accomplished that by

designing independent volumes

that either seem to float or, in some

cases, actually do in order to create

acoustical separation. The most

prominent volume, the screening

room, owes its angled shape to the

raked seating inside.

To give the volumes their own

identities, he turned to his long-ago

teacher Haresh Lalvani, now a Pratt

architetcure professor and sculptor.

Lalvani used algorithms to devise

a series of shapes that could be cut

out of the aluminum now wrapping

each volume, reflecting the activity

SEPT.15 INTERIORDESIGN.NET 115

Clockwise from top: Ottomans in the lobby are upholstered in

polyester. In the recording studio, maple baffles help manage

acoustics. The screening room seats 96. Rubber surfaces

the catwalk.

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FROM FRONT CASAMINA: CHAIRS (SOUND

STAGE). FOCAL POINT: PENDANT FIX-

TURES. IWEISS: LIGHTING GRID. TECTUM:

PANELING. NYDREE FLOORING: WOOD

PANELING (SCREENING ROOM, LOBBY).

STEELCASE: OTTOMANS (LOBBY). LEGION

LIGHTING CO.: LINEAR FIXTURES.

KI: CHAIRS (RECORDING STUDIO). KINETICS

NOISE CONTROL: BAFFLES. MODULYSS:

CARPET TILE. KNOLL TEXTILES: PANEL

FABRIC (RECORDING STUDIO, SCREENING

ROOM), SEAT FABRIC (SCREENING ROOM).

HUSSEY SEATING COMPANY: SEATS

(SCREENING ROOM). OBER: CEILING PAN-

ELS. MONDO: FLOORING (CATWALK).

THROUGHOUT DIRTY ENVIRONMENTAL

SOLUTIONS: STOREFRONT SYSTEM.

ORGANIC LIGHTING SYSTEM: COVE

LIGHTING. BENJAMIN MOORE & CO.:

PAINT. CHARCOALBLUE: ACOUSTICAL

CONSULTANT. RODNEY D. GIBBLE

CONSULTING ENGINEERS: STRUCTURAL

ENGINEER. MILGO INDUSTRIAL; BUFKIN

ENTERPRISES: METALWORK. LEGACY

BUILDERS: GENERAL CONTRACTOR.

within. Shapes for the recording

studio’s panels, for instance,

suggest sound waves. Installing

the aluminum 1.5 inches away from

the supporting walls, then lighting

the perforations from below, also

creates depth.

In contrast to the opaque alumi-

num compositions, the volumes’

upper levels and the mezzanine’s

offices and classrooms are all

fronted in transluscent glass.

A building for filmmakers should

reflect different ways of using light,

Esterson explains, adding that

there’s a reason why he chose

mostly grays for the interior: “the

color in a film school really needs

to come from the students’ films.”

Here, a flat-screen TVs display stu-

dent work in continuous rotation.

—Fred A. Bernstein

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